Caruana not yet 2800, loses to Wang Hao at Kings’ Tournament

Fabiano Caruana has to wait a bit longer before he'll pass the 2800 rating mark. In the penultimate round of the Kings’ Tournament, the Italian GM unexpectedly lost to Wang Hao of China to drop back to 2792.9 in the live ratings. After seven encounters, Wang Hao has now beaten Caruana five times while two games ended in a draw. The game between Teimour Radjabov and Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu was drawn quickly and the Romanian GM's tournament has finished now.

In the 9th round of the Kings’ Tournament, the leader Fabiano Caruana unexpectedly lost with the white pieces to Wang Hao. Caruana achieved a large advantage against the Petroff Defense, but then the things went completely out of hand for the Italian and first he let the advantage slip away and in time trouble White even missed a forced draw.

Nisipeanu-Radjabov is best explained by Nisipeanu's own words after the game:

“If you want to become a 2700-player, you don't have to beat them, it's enough to make a draw with them.”

The Romanian chose a safe strategy and only the tournament rules didn't allow the players to shake hands before move 30.

Thus before the last round Caruana is leading with a plus two score, Nisipeanu and Wang Hao are on 50 per cent and Ponomariov with Radjabov share places 4-5 with minus one. The last round starts at 13:30 local time.